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I used to cringe every time I heard a black woman cry about a black man they saw with someone from a different ethnic group. It used to literally make me nauseas because, to me, it assumed that just because people have the same outside wrapping means that they’re automatically supposed to be a match. The simplicity of such fallacious logic never made sense to me, but in this arena we weren’t dealing with logic. This was some straight emotional stuff sent over by the special effects department.
As this socially discomforting drama would unfold, quickly rising to a full scale code red alert the glaring black woman would often eventually enlist the help of a few friends who likewise expressed their utter contempt for what they saw. As the fully fueled and battle ready sortie readied themselves for takeoff I could only look on in pity at the poor, unsuspecting villains who, until the storm clouds of dissension had formed, were probably having a good time. And God please don’t let it be a white girl. That was usually his, and her, death warrant.
Over the years I learned that their anger/frustration wasn’t random. It was very specific. Yes, and while the often unsuspecting female companion was made to feel as unwelcome as someone showing up to fashion week in Paris wearing overalls and an Elmo t-shirt it was the black man who received the majority of the visual gunshot blast. The often raw emotions hid what was really at the core of the reaction: the black man consciously chose the other.
Being told that we live in a society that values a more Eurocentric standard of beauty is a foregone conclusion. Most of the fashion magazines that you see while standing in line at the grocery store display images that, except for hair color, could pretty much all be the same woman. Whenever a Black woman graces one of these covers it becomes such a big deal because, well, it’s out of the norm to say that something not gleefully Eurocentric is actually worthy of being a standard of beauty.
And then there are cultural differences. The African culture is a very expressive, live out loud experience. How we love, how we communicate, how we feel music, how we dance, how we desire, they all solicit passion. It is a fundamental element of who we are as a people.
Of course there are varying in-house degrees of temperance. We’re not all running around a fire, naked, at night on the beach (which sounds kind of cool…and is actually something an “other” girlfriend once told me her family thought black people did…seriously). Some of us find it equally fulfilling sitting in a quiet room all day long fully engaged in a book, a variety of cheeses and a cup of herbal tea.
While we may all have the same root truly there are many different branches to our tree. That we are not monolithic is quite evident, but rarely a message that we hear.
The prevailing messages that we do hear and see tend to be the most damaging ones. For instance, if you turn on the radio and listen to pop music, most of those messages are two-dimensional at best. They mostly consist of “your booty is_____________” or “I’m wanna take you home and _____________”, or “let’s ________”. All of the songs sound the same. And the videos are…let’s just say they’re pretty much soft porn. In them women have been reduced to being the basest form of sexual objectification. In fact that’s their only job. Having a big butt and walking across the screen in clothes that are too tight must be a hard job to cast for.
So the next logical role that many young women feel forced into assuming, if they want to get the attention of the vast majority of young hustlers, ballers and shot callers, is that they have to look like the video girls. So now you have an inordinate amount of young women getting boob jobs, butt jobs, ribs removed and plastic surgery. And what’s the result? You have an army of young women, and men, sprinting to the bottom of social decency.
My goal is not to bemoan pop culture. It is what it is. It has always been about making money by appealing to the least common denominator in people. I get it. But when you look at the most recent study by the Centers for Disease Control regarding marriages by ethnic groups and out of four distinct ethnic groups in this country, black women have the lowest rate of marriage at 29%. Conversely, research conducted by the Guttmacher Institute reveals that black teens between the ages of 15-19 have the hands down highest rate of all abortions at 41%.
So, do you still think those images don’t do any damage? Of course they do. These images make it easy to perpetuate the myth of the oversexed black woman. The numbers above speak for themselves. There’s a lot of sex going on, but not a lot of marrying. Consciously choosing a black woman to be your wife is quite different than choosing a black woman to go to bed with. Those two are not even remotely the same thing.
Sometimes consciously choosing a black woman means turning off the television, getting up from in front of the computer screen and actually going out and meeting one of them. That takes a lot of courage and a lot of men are chickens. It’s easy to hit it and quit it. That doesn’t take any social skill nor does it exhibit the kind of backbone that it takes to create a legacy. Why not choose a black woman to settle down with? That means you’ll have to suspend any pre-conceived notions that you may have (see fears) and realize that they’re as fiercely loyal, passionate, creative, complicated, endearing, loving, supportive, calculating, multifaceted, intelligent, reserved, vulnerable, alluring, articulate and physically wondrous specimens as any woman worth loving is.